


Three Score and Something

by out_there



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-18
Updated: 2005-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people age like fine wine.  Dan ages with a fine whine.  (There's a slight but important difference between the two.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Score and Something

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ Fairy, who requested a look at Dan and Casey in thirty years' time (thank you!). Huge thanks to [](http://meadowlion.livejournal.com/profile)[**meadowlion**](http://meadowlion.livejournal.com/), who beta'd and gave me great suggestions. Thanks also to [](http://phoebesmum.livejournal.com/profile)[**phoebesmum**](http://phoebesmum.livejournal.com/), who helped me out when my brain deserted me.

Isaac had turned sixty the week before Sports Night hit the air. At the time, Dan had thought that was ancient, not that he'd ever tell Isaac as much, but still. The difference between twenty-seven and sixty was lifetimes.

Sixty wasn't just over the hill: it was beyond it, down the other side, and starting in on the next meandering slope. Sixty was so past-It that most people couldn't even remember what It was.

A few years ago, Casey had passed into that era, into that stage where the only babes in his life were Charlie's daughters, where the only time he was called 'man' was when it was prefaced with an 'old.'

Dan had kept his mouth shut. He hadn't mentioned the over-the-hill-ness of turning sixty. He hadn't pointed out Casey was past-It, mainly because Casey had never had It to start with. But this was no longer about Casey. This was about _Dan_.

He had every right to be hysterical.

"Ancient, Casey. That's what I am. Ancient!"

Casey raised one white eyebrow. It was as snowy as his hair was, but Casey's receding hairline increased the effectiveness of that expression.

"Sixty. That's, like--" Dan waved his hand, looking for inspiration in the living room of their one-storey, two-bedroom, New Jersey house. Unsurprisingly, not a lot of inspiration was forthcoming. He'd complained to Casey about it many times -- how could anyone be inspired by New Jersey? -- before they'd moved, but Casey had pointed out practical things: that neither of them needed to be in New York, that the rest of their friends had moved out of Manhattan proper years ago, and that Dan only saw his publisher once a month. That Charlie couldn't afford to move and Casey wanted to be close to their grandchildren.

In the end, that was the swing that hit the homerun. Not the fact that Charlie couldn't afford to move, but the way that Casey had said _their_ grandchildren, the way that Casey had solidified Dan's place in the family with one little word. Then Lottie -- Charlotte Rose McCall, their first granddaughter -- had been born. There was no way Dan could have refused her scrunched-up red face and delicate, little fingernails.

"I'm making cocoa," Casey said, and then stood up. He groaned a little as he got out of the recliner. It wasn't the 'my back's gone out again' groan; it was more of an 'I don't want to have this conversation' groan. "You want some?"

"Sixty is old. It's, like, three score and something."

"And something?" Casey fixed a weary gaze on Dan. "You realize a score is twenty years, right?"

Rubbing his chin, Dan frowned as he felt the skin under his jaw wobble for an extra moment. As if he needed another reminder of his own insidious aging. "So it's just three score?"

"Pretty much."

Dan looked around the living room. It wasn't filled with knick-knacks and crocheted blankets and whatever old people filled their houses with. Unlike the study -- and their bedroom -- the living room was clear and sparse, child-proofed long ago and now kept that way through Casey's over-zealous tidiness. It wasn't an old man's living room. "You sure?"

"I'm very sure."

"Still. Three score. That's ancient!"

"Did you want a hot cocoa or not?"

"I don't think you heard me," Dan said as he stood up to follow Casey into the kitchen. He didn't groan as he got out of the chair: that was an auditory hallucination, he was sure of it. It was psychosomatic, caused by the thought of turning sixty. It was not proof that he was an old man. "Ancient. Past-It. Over the hill."

Casey shook his head and took two mugs out of the cupboard.

It was fine for Casey: Casey liked being an old man. He liked being Grandpa and telling stories from Back When I Was Young. He liked feeding his granddaughters sugar and sending them home to Charlie all hyped up. Okay, Dan liked doing that too. But that wasn't because he liked being an old guy; it was because he appreciated the chance of vengeance for those early-morning calls he got when Charlie didn't want to wake his father.

Dan had the latest computer. He knew how to use his cell and program his own DVD-R. He knew the latest bands. He saw modern plays. It wasn't fair that something as inconsequential as age was making him old. "It isn't fair."

Casey turned on the cheery yellow kettle that matched their cheery yellow toaster. "What isn't?"

"I am no longer a young, vibrant guy."

Casey poured the steaming water out of the kettle and then stirred in the milk. "You don't ride a tricycle any more, either."

"What?"

"You pass through stages of life, Danny. Not every stage needs to be mourned."

"I used to be the guy!" Behind the small, blue-rimmed glasses, Casey's eyes remained blank. Dan crossed his arms. "The guy, you know? The cool one, the sexy one. The one that's hip to what's happening--"

"You were hip?" Casey asked with a smirk.

"I was the guy! Look at me. Now I'm the old guy. It's unfair."

Sighing, Casey took a good look at what Dan saw daily in the mirror: from salt'n'pepper hair, past crows-feet and laugh lines to ankles that hurt in the cold and sneakers that held corned toes. Then he met Dan's eyes again, and seemed completely unmoved by the whole sorry sight. "You're wearing jeans and a T-shirt. You've worn that since you were twenty."

"Then I'm the old guy trying to look young. That's even worse."

"We had this argument when found your first grey hair. When you turned forty. When you got glasses and again when you turned fifty." Casey sipped the cocoa, and then sat down at the wooden kitchen table, the same table where Lottie had practiced her penmanship while Casey had raced toy cars with her little sister, Sarah. Casey had spent two hours getting the black rubber-tire tracks off the wood flooring the next morning; that afternoon, he'd gone out and bought a brightly-colored mat for the cars to drive across next time. "I don't see the big deal."

"That's because you don't miss being cool. You were never cool in the first place. You dressed like an old man when you were in college. Me?" Dan asked, pointing at himself. "I was cool. I had It."

"What was so great about it?"

"See, you never had It. Otherwise, you wouldn't ask that question."

Casey snorted. "Really, what was so great about it?"

"What was so great about It? About being young and single and sexy? About being successful and taking home a different girl every night of the week?" Dan could hear the note of wistful finality in his voice. He sounded like a has-been. He _was_ a has-been. "It was great."

"What about dealing with the network and keeping everything secretive? What about arguments about certain people flirting with girls in bars?" Casey asked pointedly, pulling at the sleeve of his cardigan. The same type of cardigan he'd worn around his apartment after the divorce. The same type of cardigan he'd probably secretly stashed away in college. "What about those years when career came first, when we only slept five hours a night every March, and every show felt like it would never end?"

"Okay, those sucked." Dan sighed, and stretched forward to pick up his mug from the counter. It had marshmallows floating in the top. Casey always bought them -- even though he hated marshmallows with an obscene passion -- because he knew Dan liked them in his cocoa. "But there were good times, too."

"I'm not saying there weren't. I'm just saying," Casey paused, holding his hands up. They were still wide and strong, but along the back of his hands the veins stood out and the age-spots showed. Funny that Dan had kissed those hands last night and hadn't noticed the way the knuckles had become larger and the skin was looser. Then again, he'd been concentrating on other things at the time.

Dan blinked the thoughts away and sat down opposite Casey. "You're saying what?"

"There are good times now. There's not staying up until midnight. There's not dealing with city traffic. There's holding hands in public and sleeping in on weekdays." Casey smirked, and familiar lines deepened on his face. "And for me, there's waking up and knowing you'll be there."

"Hmm."

Casey smiled, his thin lips stretching over large, square teeth. "And if you have to pay for it with a few grey hairs and a few wrinkles, I don't think it's a bad trade."

Dan tapped his fingernails on the tabletop, listening to the uneven staccato beat. "I'm still going to sulk over this for a while."

"I expect you will," Casey said, standing up. "I also expect we'll have this conversation again the next time you freak out. I'm not lucky enough for this to be the end of it."

"In that case," Dan started, and then realized he had nowhere to go with that sentence. He shrugged. "You know me well."

There was a sparkle in Casey's eyes as he looked over his shoulder. "I've had a lot of years to learn the wonder that is you."

Dan didn't dignify that comment with a reply.


End file.
